Although we already heard and wrote about this part on several occasions, Intel has today officially launched its latest Extreme Edition Core i7-3970X CPU.

The main, and for that matter the only difference between the new Core i7-3970X and the previous flagship the Core i7-3960X are higher base and Turbo Boost clocks. In case you missed it, the Core i7-3970X is a six-core LGA 2011 socket CPU with 15MB of L3 cache and quad-channel memory controller with support for Hyper-Threading (for those twelve threads), The new Core i7-3970X works at 200MHz higher, 3.5GHz based clock with up to 4GHz Turbo Boost but comes at a 20W higher, 150W TDP.

The new Core i7-3970X CPU is launched with the same US $999 price as its predecessor.

According to a report over at Donanimhaber.com, Intel's new Core i7-3970X flagship "extreme" CPU is scheduled to appear in Q4 2012.

The Core i7-3970X is going to replace the current Core i7-3960X and it is basically just a minor speed bump. According to available details, it could end up working at 3.5GHz base and 4.0GHz Turbo clock. Of course, it will still be based on 32nm Sandy Bridge-E architecture and feature 6 cores with HyperThreading support, have 15MB of L3 cache and come with unlocked multiplier since it is a part of "Extreme Edition" lineup.

The Core i7-3970X should also pack a same quad-channel DDR3 memory controller with support for up to DDR3-1600 memory and have a 130W TDP, same as on the Core i7-3960X.

The good side of the story is that it should replace the Core i7-3960X EE CPU that should probably experience a slight drop in price before it phases out of the market.

The guys from Donanimhaber.com managed to score some slides revealing the performance of the upcoming Sandy Bridge-E processor series, or to be precise, the flaghsip Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition. In general, the new Sandy Bridge-E is around 47% faster on average when compared to Intel's current top offer, the Core i7-990X Extreme Edition.

As it was detailed earlier, the Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition is Intel's top offer in the upcoming Sandy Bridge-E CPU lineup and supports the upcoming LGA2011 socket. It features six cores ticking at 3.3GHz with Turbo Boost of up to 3.9GHz, has 12 threads with HyperThreading and a total of 15MB of L3 cache.

The test lineup has some quite interesting benches including Cinebench 11.5, 3DMark 11, Sisoft Sandra and much more. As noted, Intel's upcoming socket LGA2011 Core i7-3960X EE is 47.25% faster on average when pitched to go against the current socket LGA1366 Core i7-990X EE CPU. In its slides, Intel claims that the perfromance boost comes from 33% higher memory bandwidth on the quad-channel DDR3 as well as from the new AVX instruction set that takes care of CPU intensive tasks.

There has been some rumours regarding the Sandy Bridge-E launch date and as far as we know, Intel is currently talking about late October/early November although our best bet is end of October. Also you can expect some serious feature packed motherboards from partners once Intel gives a green light.

AMD might have a good thing going with Bulldozer. AMD's latest creation comes in eight and six core version and according to the latest info we gathered Intel's Sandy Bridge-E sticks to a six core design.

This new enthusiast class CPU needs an LGA2011 socket and it works at 3.3GHz core. Intel claims that this CPU is completely unlocked and that it has total amount of 15MB of cache. With The help of Turbo this 130W CPU gets to 3.9GHz which is quite a nice score.

For comparison, the current Intel Core i7-990X Processor Extreme Edition has 12MB of cache, 3.46GHz core clock and with turbo it can get you to 3.73 GHz. You can assume that Sandy Bridge E extreme edition ends up faster. Sandy Bridge E also uses the X79 chipset that is also scheduled for Q4 2011 introduction.

Bulldozer with eight cores should at least win in some cases, at least this is a logical conclusion, but we will need to wait and see it to believe it.

Back in August, we wrote about the Intel's next generation Westmere 32nm based six-core branded as Core i7 990X Extreme (Expensive) Edition.

We said that the CPU has a 3.46GHz stock clock and the ability to OC all the way to 3.73GHz for some of all six-cores it has. We also told you that this 130W CPU has three channel DDR3 memory support and total of 12MB cache. Let's not forget that people who get this $999+ part will end up with a twelve hyper-treaded, pretend to be real, cores.

It is 32nm but it doesn’t have any integrated graphics but we can tell you that in is planned to see this new CPU in Q1 2011. Memory freaks won’t be thrilled with joy to learn that fastest Intel CPU will officially only support DDR3 1066 and unofficially of course well over 1333MHz.

There is an indication that after Q2 2011 there might be a new, faster version of Westmere-based Extreme Edition six-cores but there are no any assurances at this time.

Intel's top Extreme Edition CPU for Q1 2011 just got a name. It will be called Core i7 990X and as you can imagine it will be faster than currently fastest Core i7 980X.

The new CPU comes in Q1 2011 and it’s based on Gulftown 6 core and as we reported before not on Sandy Bridge new 32nm architecture. Sandy Bridge stops at four cores while Gulftown is six core 32nm CPU.

The clock speed of Core i7 990X is 3.46GHz, some 130MHz faster than Core i7 980X's 3.33GHz. with the help of Turbo Core i7 990X will overclock to 3.73GHz and the CPU still has six cores, twelve hypertreaded cores as well as QPI at 6.4GT/s. The CPU is unlocked and it will allow some further overclocking and it still doesn’t have any integrated graphics core.

The platform packs a 3-channel memory controller and the TDP is quite easy to guess, 130W. Overall we don’t see many reasons to be excited about Core i7 990X as this is just slightly faster version of the 980X.

So the Core i7 has the same old Westmere – Gulftown 32nm core that continues to be the top six core CPU that is set to dominate the top SKU desktop offer as well as top of the Xeon market. The price again easy, $999 when it gets available in Q1 2011.

Let me remind you that before Core i7 990X comes at some point in Q1 2011, there won’t be any new Intel six-core in the meantime, you are simply stuck with Core i7 980X until the 990X comes.

It’s big, it's hot, it's TDP is55W but it will be by far the fastest CPU ever to land in a notebook. Currently Intel sells Core i7 Extreme edition i7 920XM clocked at 2.0GHz with 3.2GHz core clock with turbo overclocking and this will all change in Q3 2010.

The new CPU comes with Core i7 940XM name, it is a quad core mobile Extreme edition CPU with four cores and eight threads support. The official clock is 2.13GHz but with the help of turbo this CPU can work all the way to 3.33GHz.

The memory of choice is DDR3 1333 and the CPU has 8MB of cache. At launch it will most likely inherited the $1054 price from 920XM CPU and the introduction date might be as early as next week at Germanys Games Convention, but this is not something we can confirm.

This will be the fastest CPU to launch for notebook and at least in this year, there should not be any six-core mobile CPU’s as 55W from this quad core monster is hot enough for any kind of notebook / gaming desktop replacement.